Ryan Whitney reacts to Connor McDavid’s high stick Incident leaving Quinn Hughes bloodied

In the second period of the Edmonton Oilers vs Vancouver Canucks Game 2 on Friday, Connor McDavid ended up catching Canucks captain Quinn Hughes with a high stick. The hit left Hughes with a gash on his left cheek, drawing blood, while there was no penalty called against McDavid for the play.

This did not sit well with NHL analyst Ryan Whitney, who promptly took to X/Twitter to express his opinion:

“Mcdavid so lucky to not get a 4 min double minor for that high stick. Huge missed call."

Whitney believed that the lack of such a penalty was a significant oversight by the officials. He went on to label it as a "huge missed call."

He further tweeted:

“Did the ref miss a double minor by McDavid on Hughes? Yes. Did the ref miss a blatant too many men on the ice penalty by the Canucks ? Yes. Did the Canucks decide to just put 4 guys on the ice the entire third period? Yes.”

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Quinn Hughes opens up on match officiating and high stick from Connor McDavid

In the post-game presser, Canucks captain Quinn Hughes reflected on the game and addressed the challenges they faced while containing Edmonton's top line. He mentioned that the game had its physical moments but overall both teams were focused on keeping possession.

When asked about the match officiating, and calls that were not made, Hughes said:

“Obviously, the officiating, they have, you know, a really hard job. You know, usually both sides are going at them. I feel for them. We are lucky we have the guys in the league that we do have, I'll leave it at that." (starting from 1:30 in the clip below)

Regarding the high-stick hit from Connor McDavid, Hughes said (at 1:54 in the video above):

“Obviously, I haven't looked at the clips, so I can’t comment. But from my perspective, I was hit in the face, that’s all I know."

Quinn Hughes and the Canucks will be looking to regain a lead in the series on Sunday when they play the Oilers at Rogers Place.